July 19, 2016

“Fanatical defenders of religion start out
attacking contemporary secular culture; it’s no surprise when they end up
forsaking any meaningful religious experience. In a similar way, many liberal
warriors are so eager to fight anti-democratic fundamentalism that they end up
flinging away freedom and democracy if only they may fight terror. The
‘terrorists’ may be ready to wreck this world for love of another, but the
warriors on terror are just as ready to wreck their own democratic world out of
hatred for the Muslim other. Some of them love human dignity so much that they
are ready to legalise torture to defend it. The defenders of Europe against the
immigrant threat are doing much the same. In their zeal to protect the
Judeo-Christian legacy, they are ready to forsake what is most important in
that legacy. The anti-immigrant defenders of Europe, not the notional crowds of
immigrants waiting to invade it, are the true threat to Europe.”

Slavoj Žižek, “Barbarism with a Human Face”, London Review of Books, vol.36 no.9, 8 May 2014